


Why Are You Like This

by saigne



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rating will go up later, So I wrote this a few weeks ago, So sue me, and it's gonna be a very slow updating work in progress thanks to school, will add tags as needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 15:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5831584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saigne/pseuds/saigne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's tired of mysteries and regrets and lies and if he's very honest with himself, second chances. But he's not honest and he's pushing everything down with cigarettes and violence and if trashy pop music is playing quietly on stake outs that's his business. He just wants to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Are You Like This

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere I guess after Red Hood and the Outlaws but before everything goes to hell the way it does in the DC universe. Though honestly continuity doesn't matter when you have parallel universes anyways.

There's something beautiful about the city, Jason decides. In the way that it manages to keep going even when it gets beaten down by disaster after disaster, it somehow keeps moving like nothing is wrong. It's amazing, really. Gotham is. In the dark, the lights of the tall buildings chase away the trash rolling just under the surface, but Jason knows it's there. Disgusting and pulsing like a disease that won't go away. He knows it all too well. 

Breath.

He takes a drag of his cigarette, nicotine calming the nerves that have never seemed to leave him after… Everything. Events and circumstances have been piling on his shoulders and now Jason is a high tension wire, straining and tensed to snap. He has a kill count that's climbed higher and higher over the years and it's so tiring. He's exhausted. The idea that he could have steeled himself to take out the filth in Gotham City he knows was always a childish notion, because it's cold and the metal he's forging within himself will get brittle and snap. Break until he either becomes worse than all of them, or becomes unable to do anything at all. He knows this. 

Jason winces at a throb in his shoulder, some asshole with a new toy. It wasn't strong enough to get through the Kevlar adorning his body, but it did bruise. The adrenaline is finally wearing off properly and what returns is more pain, old wounds and new ones to add to the phantom pains littering his body. 

Another drag and exhale, and Jason watches the smoke fade in front of him and suddenly it's too close to how he feels. Like he could disappear in a second, and how no one will care, just like smoke. It's not like it hasn't happened in the past. 

Maybe instead it will be relief, like fresh air.

The cigarette isn't calming anymore. 

All at once Jason stands and flicks the cigarette off the roof, watching the glow fade and it falling and in seconds it's invisible, not even on the ground yet. But it's just so fucking small. Insignificant. Gone. Maybe he's just a joke. 

He has his mask in one hand, sliding it over his head and obscuring his face to the world. Maybe he's hiding behind the mask but that's something no one needs to know but himself. And that's the reason he never saw him coming. It feels like it had to have been timed, but that's almost worse, the idea of someone watching him without him knowing. Soft. Weak. It's a coincidence, then. At least the hood is on. 

Jason turns and faces the man who so graciously decided to interrupt his moment of solitude and relaxation. It’s always like this. That dick just had the worst timing. Hah. Dick. The edge of Jason's mouth quirks up at the joke, not worried because it's not like Grayson suddenly has x-ray vision.

Grayson. God he's persistent. Like a ray of sunshine you can't escape from when all you want is to be in the shade. He wishes he hadn't thrown the cigarette away. 

“Aw Dickiebird, I know you miss me but we really need to stop meeting like this,” Jason says, voice sugary sweet and dripping with acid, hand casually moving to one of the multiple guns he has on him. Purely chance and not a warning. 

Dick only laughs quietly. He did keep going after Jason when he could, and he did miss him, nor would he stop trying to talk sense into him and get him to stop killing. To come home. No matter how much Dick would pretend otherwise, Jason could see from a while away what he's doing. 

He's the god damned sun, too bright and it hurts. Burns. The worst part, Jason thinks, is that Dick won't take a hint. Coming with a smile, leaving with injuries, resting, and repeating. Persistent and loyal to a fault.

“I don't want to hurt your ego, but today was actually an accident,” Dick says easily, posture seemingly relaxed. Jason can't understand the feeling of disappointment that curls in his chest when he realizes that Dick isn't actually looking for him, which was stupid.

Jason snorts, crushing the feeling as brutally as he could. “Going to try and arrest me then? Finish the nighty patrol off with the Red Hood?” Jason's tone takes on a mocking edge as he speaks, keeping his posture relaxed while every part of him was in fact the opposite. “I have to warn you, I didn't kill anyone tonight, if that helps keep me away from Johnny Law and the swift justice dealt by Nightwing.”

Dick gives him an odd look, and Jason hopes it isn't because of the fact that tonight he didn't kill anyone. He hadn't killed anyone recently either, and he knows that it has to have come to /their/ attention already. Then again, it wasn't as if Dick kept track of him and everything he did. Hopefully. Jason isn't sure what the information would do to him, good or bad. 

The silence is deafening. Jason wants to fire a gun into the air to kill it. He refuses to speak now that's he's thrown the ball in the others court. What feels like hours to him is just a few seconds. In the silence Dick smiles slightly, and the simple act makes Jason feel even more on edge than before. He needs a cigarette. 

“I think I'll give you a free pass just this once,” Dick says, tone light and tinged with something Jason just can't figure out. It's frustrating, and Jason adds it to the list of things he can't understand and decides he never will. A lot of what Dick does is on that list. "Consider yourself lucky, little wing.”

Jason scowls at that. The memories of the times he had with Dick in the past come back like they did each time he heard the nickname and with it the...guilt? Yearning? Jason isn't sure, the feeling settling unpleasantly in his chest like a viper. He needs to fucking go.

He does just that, stepping back from Dick and memories and he's moving forward this way, not hiding. Jason’s heel hangs off the edge of the roof and he pauses for a moment. He leaps back, facing Dick but and giving the man a mock salute as he falls. The air rips past him and he turns, shooting a line and letting gravity pull him away. He’s gone, running to a safe house on the other side of Gotham. It's a tactical retreat. Nothing good can come of any time spent around Dick. For once he doesn't feel like fighting. He's tired, and if he ignores how bone deep that feeling is starting to go, it's his own business. No one else's.


End file.
